Motorsports is probably the most expensive sport in the world regardless of the discipline and NASCAR is no different. Several parts are required in a race car that require a lot of money. But the most important element probably are the tires used by these race cars. Goodyear invests a lot of time and effort into creating and producing these tires and they’re certainly not cheap. To be more precise, it’s an incredible $550 per tire.
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Each car requires four tires at any one point of time and then there are several different sets for a race weekend. There’s one set for the practice session, another set for qualifying, and another one before the race starts. That’s 12 tires already and it’s nowhere near over yet. Drivers come in for several pit stops and while some may decide to use older tires, usually, fresh sets are preferred.
Now a lot of teams field more than one car every race. Joe Gibbs Racing is one such example with four full-time drivers in their roster. Therefore every car will require multiple tire sets for every race weekend. In a recent Short on YouTube, the team explained exactly how much they spent on tires at Darlington. With four cars using several different tire sets, the total for JGR came to a whopping $90,200.
This amount will be similar for other teams with four drivers such as Hendrick Motorsports and Stewart-Haas Racing. If the tire cost for one race can go over $90,000, one can imagine how much that expense would accumulate to across the season. Of course aside from the tires there are countless other elements that teams have to pay for that cost a lot more.
It’s easy to see why the smaller teams struggle as much as they do to keep going race after race. Motorsports is simply not possible without deep pockets and it might sound unfair to many, but that’s just how it’s always been and will always be.
